Calm before Death
by Vainclick
Summary: Calm is a weapon and cool is Meister. They haven't gotten a witch yet and are behind everyone else , so surely they can manage a witch and be alright? Things get a bit complicated though and Death the Kid steps into the story.
1. Chapter 1

**Chapter 1**

**Calm and Cool**

The world is paired in twos , there's a match for everything . North has South , East has west , the sun has the moon , heaven has hell , cold has hot , dark has light , male has female , Silence has sound , so its only right then , that someone like me , who enjoys pairs so much , happens to be a part of a pair myself .

Im a weapon named Calm , and my Meister is Francis Craft who has been friends with me since I fist came to the Academy.

While my main goal is to stay calm and keep all my anger and anxiety's in ,Francis on the other hand has trouble getting emotional at all , he always complains that hes bored .

This particular trait seems to bother most people apparently , but its never bothered me. In fact Ive always admired his calm personality , he never gets anxious or angry and he doesn't flip when he sees a horrible creature with more then four legs. ( I cannot tolerate insects )

And he puts up with my anxiety , my anger , my fears and tells me they amuse him.

Francis is seen as a friendly and social guy , he seems to get along with everyone .

...Me though...

"Hey watch it " I lost my footing and ended up on the floor , unfortunately right in someones way on my way to class . It was embarrassing that much was by all means true since my skirt ended up sort of flipping when I fell.

I blushed dumbfounded and quickly rearranged myself.

"I ..I ..Imm...Im s.."

"Yeah yeah I'm sorry , I get it . Maybe you should learn sign language the whole talking thing never works out very well for you does it?" There was some quiet laughter that muted quickly as I looked around , no one particularly liked the idea of being caught laughing at me.

"I...I..." I stopped. She was right ...this girl looking at me she was so right. I was furious and I wanted to punch her for a slight minuet when I saw her smirking...But I quickly remembered again who I was .

Be calm.

I nodded my head after taking a breath.

"Your right." I said this smoothly , the uncaring mode taking over and turned heel and walked out.

To her it probably only caught her off guard for the slightest minuet. She would forget that gesture in less then five. Me on the other hand , I felt proud of myself and kept that walk in my mind all day .

I'm Calm . I'm going to stay that way. No one will break this cool reserve. No anger will devour me , my obsessions will stay back , my passions , my tears ...my fear even. Everything will be held back , cooled down till not a single flame is left. I would destroy all of my petty and weak self , and mold a new self until I was a statue all could admire . I would be the perfect weapon , and Francis would be the perfect Mister .

Francis would feed off the passions of the world and use them to his advantage , while I would be the cool and collected metal I was meant to be.

Or at least at that time that's what I truly believed with all my heart.

Plans are more often then not completely destroyed by unseen circumstances , But I continued with these train of thoughts back then.

I had almost mastered ignoring the rude girls and there immature ways , all though my stuttering issue was still pretty prominent at times.

If only people could hear me talk like I think...

Well no matter , that would be gone soon enough.

I entered the classroom and noticed Francis was already there . He calmly half waved at me and motioned me to sit down. I walked over and happily sat next to him aware that a girl far behind us was shooting deadly glares at me. The girl was march and for whatever reason , she was pretty much obsessed with Francis. Honestly I totally loved Francis , he was my best friend , and like family to me , but I could never be ,...well...I could never DATE Francis...the concept seemed so weird to me.

I do suppose once I had imagined it.

Francis was tall and lanky sure , he had these really sweet droopy eyes the color of a dark forest and Sandy colored hair. He looked bored more often then he did sweet though. I wont lie , an attention span was not at all that great. Oh and there was Francis's name.

He hated his own name with a passion. I had met him before he had taken on a new name , so he yelled at me if I called him that . Oh heavens no , I was supposed to call him Cool. Yeah you got that we were a team , Calm and Cool .

Way Corny right? Well God knows Francis liked to say it to an enemy right before battle.

"Hey whats your name? Oh yeah I don't care , this is my weapon here and together we are calm and cool"

He was ...well he was kind of a moron sometimes. BUT he was a sweet moron and It was kind of cute when he did that .

Though I will admit ...I am pretty cool, when I'm in weapon form anyway.

Professor. Stine was in front of the classroom this time , the teachers would move to the classroom in turns rather then us going to different classrooms which is something I found puzzling when I first came to go to school here. Being an American we did things different , but apparently this style was more common in most parts of the world .

"Ok class , today were going to do things a bit different , now basically your all covered for the most part with your study's , some of you are actually even almost reapers , the remaining of you in this class group though , are not and I wont lie im running out of topics to cover...

We could always dissect things I suppose..." He started rambling about some rare and interesting lizard and I suppressed a shudder.

I mean yeah we had to kill evil people all the time but...What did that lizard ever do to us?

"Anyway once again my resources are tapped out and my idea wasn't approved , though...never mind , what I have today is demonstration on dual weapon merging ! By none-other then our next lord death , Death...the kid ...or young adult if you want to be precise really...well never mind."

In the back of the classroom miss march herself waved her arm back and forth.

"Um Sir , didn't we already cover this ? I mean you had us in groups already and we merged all out souls..! And not only that , a few of us actually have dual weapons! "

Professor Stine sort of just stared at her for a minuet like she was some sort of weird creature he wanted to cut into pieces and examine. Something that I always imagined he actually would rather do to us then teach us anything.

" Like I said Im running out of ideas. Hey your groups pretty much almost adults and you STILL have to get a witches soul , and your telling me how to run my class now? What am I supposed to cover more? I did special classes for most of you , and STILL you haven't gotten a witches soul. Hey I know Its hard and all , but you guys get your acts together , I'll have one less class group to teach and you can all learn new and better stuff . Till then Im just gonna go over the same stuff over and over till it actually stays in your little brains. " He at this point grabbed a cigarette out of is pocket and lit it . He must have been pretty pissed off Mrs. Marie had pretty much banned him from smoking in the classrooms.

I know I was red , totally embarrassing! So where the other ...well nine students left in the room.

Ok ...so I admit ...neither Cool or me had been very lucky at the whole witch hunt yet , but THAT WAS NOT OUR FAULT! No ..I mean when your in an entire class full of people who are after witches sometimes your options are ...well LIMITED. That...and we sort of sucked for awhile.

But all that was different now...DIFFERENT! I was Calm now and collected ..HE was COOL now and more organized.

Our luck was totally going to change.

I really hoped.

When Kid walked into the room , I admit I had chills. I had seen him only a few times on school events , he was always so calm and knew exactly what he was going to say. He would talk in this organized fashion that got to the point .And mostly what gave me chills was how he looked. He was only black and white save for his eyes which almost looked like glowing lanterns in the dark , not simply one shade of gold but two.

Two shades of gold , and two colors to dress in .

He seemed so perfect. It was like he wasn't even human.

Oh wait...never mind.

I almost feel like that was the day that everything changed . Was it?


	2. Chapter 2:Demonstrating Perfect symmetry

Chapter 2

Demonstrating Perfect symmetry

Calm

The classroom was silent ...well more silent than usual, when Kid walked in. I felt myself take a breath, I was actually excited! I looked over quickly at Francis...or well "Cool" to see how he was doing. Instead of his usual bored expression he actually had a raised eyebrow.

This had to be interesting!

He was once in our shoes...a student here. And now he was this amazing soul reaper , probably the very best of them all. He actually had a small fan club...but I never really paid much attention to it. After all Cool was always saying fan-clubs over guys and girls are "Not cool".

But looking at him I felt myself blush and wonder if ...well maybe I wasn't so cool.

He seemed to be in his very late teens , maybe eighteen but perhaps he was even twenty! Walking behind him were two stunningly beautiful girls though. As they entered I actually felt Francis shift in his seat.

I held back a quiet giggle. Poor Francis didn't have a chance at one of them, I looked at him with a grin as if to tell him so.

"Oh?" He whispered reading my mind. "Saw you looking to...Why Calm, I never saw you as a fan girl.." My jaw dropped horrified and I stomped on his foot as hard as I effective since I was wearing heels. (I'm scrawny I need all the height I can get)

"Cool" made a very uncool noise, the noise one makes when they hold there screams back by biting as hard as they can on their own arm. I grinned.

Yeah Heels hurt like hell but I'm starting to think I'll wear them more often.

This seemed to catch the attention of March who glared at me even worse than before.

I chose to ignore her and watch Kid instead.

"Before I begin! Everyone needs to...!" Kid began to say

"Kid don't please "Liz interrupted, while her sister cackled

"SIT IN PROPER SEMETRY."

Dr. Stein's cigarette fell out of his mouth as his expression darkened.

"Just do it ..." For the next five minutes we were arranged in our seats so we each were exactly five seat lengths apart and in rows of three . I was really curious to see exactly what this had to do with anything.

Apparently nothing.

It seemed like the room began to darken almost though, and the ever motionless candles began to shiver with anticipation, there flames and Liz quickly soul transferred and with a violet light, they turned into two shinning guns.

I watched curiously. How it was their weapon form could be so perfectly identical when they weren't a pair? They were sisters but they weren't twins. If they were twins they certainly weren't Identical twins anyway.

He showed us a series of moves and we were instructed by stein to note down anything interesting we saw about the Meister and the weapons.

After the lesson was over.

"This is so boring, let's get a witches soul tonight, I can't dare repeat these lessons anymore. " It was cool saying this and I nodded and realized this was probably Dr. Steins plan anyway. Bore us to-death or make us eager to risk our necks after a witch ...in either case making us not his responsibility. Of course it wasn't entirely boring to watch pretty-boy do awesome tricks for thirty minutes; I wasn't expecting to have this sort of luck again.

Then I realized I was nodding and stopped horrified.

Um a witch? I had heard horror story's …about witches like Arachne and Medusa...

"It's cool, most witches aren't like that at all Calm, we will be OK, trust me, were too awesome to loose" He smiled and I smiled back. I was grateful that Francis always knew what I was feeling, I really sucked at talking.

We went to the bulletin board and looked around.

"Hey there's a witch who's been seen on the parched plains." I managed to say out-loud busy reading." The paper actually seemed pretty old and kind of hidden away from the others. In fact I was pretty sure I had glimpsed it several times, though I never really noticed it before.

"Seems like she doesn't have a picture and not much is stated about her... or for that matter what she looks like...Just a witch and lots of disappearances in that area. Is that a valid enough claim on here? "He muttered out loud.

"Every other time we've hunted a witch someone's beat us to it, no one has even attempted finding this one. If she isn't there then we've simply made a long trip for nothing and caught some scenery, and if she is..."

"Yeah that's true enough, by the way nice to hear your voice for a change." Francis "soul" said. I felt a warm flush to my face.

"No one's around but you and your ..."

"Cool..." He said.

"Um...well that's not what I had in mind ..."

Death the Kid

"Kid why we to do that …did" Liz complained. Kid turned and looked at liz .

"Cause patty volunteered "He explained simply.

"YUP!" She pronounced cheerfully.

"Patty why ...what was the point..."

"Cause it was fun, we got to show off!" Patty smiled. Kid smiled. She was so odd.

Liz and Patti had been with him for several years now, and he found they were like oxygen , he simply didn't know what it was like to live without them , just like he didn't know what it was like not to breath. They had all grown over the years and it was no surprise to anyone that he was taller, and more mature looking. He liked to think even more symmetrical looking as-well. Patties hair was longer too and styled in the same way as her sisters so he was happier then ever! So symmetrical. And Patti had even grown taller! He started thinking about perhaps designing new outfits ...and caught himself and forced himself to push such thoughts aside.

Summitry was beautiful ...amazing ...beyond words...

But to let your mind wander, into the world of

Perfectionism...

was surely a way to go crazy.

He had to stop thinking about this ...Now!

"Your having perverted thoughts again aren't you Kid?

"No! I'm not I'm having perfectly symmetrical thoughts! "

"Same thing….." Patti quickly said stretching while she did so carelessly.

"LIZ! "he pointed .

She stared.

"Yeah Kid?"

"We are supposed to wait in the conference room for stein , lets get moving."

"Any reason you pointed at me?"

He slowly glared at her.

"Ok ...never mind then..."

The hallway was dark and chilly like usual, they made their way to the conference room, and kid took note that the room looked like it hadn't been used in a-while. But then again why would it? When people needed to have a meeting at the school they usually went to the death room.

He was grateful they didn't have to go there right now. He hated that room. All the crosses were terribly crooked and he remembered trying to straighten them out one time. Naturally it completely backfired and he accidentally tore off the skin from his toddler fingers.

"Well what are you doing there? " His father asked looking puzzled and concerned.

He cried.

That asymmetrical room.

They took their seats and kid let out a deep sigh holding his head in his hands, his elbows propped up on the table.

Hearing the sound of clicking boots he looked up to see stein still smoking his cigarette and entering the room.

"You called me here about something you wanted to discuss in private stein."

"That's about right..." The room they were in seemed almost darker than it had before as a puff of smoke exited his mouth.

" I'm concerned about one of my students … I figure you can help me out. "

Kid was terribly confused now. One of his students? Why on earth would he call him out here for that? He was a terribly busy man; he had his own things to do. Like correct the alignment of his house not to mention the evil souls.

"It's a very special student...she's ...I have reason to believe she's been holding herself back, and by that I mean in every sense of the way. Her soul has always been well ...chained down. I talked to Lord Death about it in the beginning and he said she would unbind herself in time, but there hasn't been any sign of it, not at all. In fact I'm concerned that it's not even her doing.

"And this involves me how? "Kid demanded.

"I don't want to bother Lord Death with this. Not yet, not until I'm completely sure.

"You still haven't answered my question stein."

"I need someone strong to confirm this...I need a reaper ...but I think she has the bound soul of a witch. That or a witch is involved with binding it."

Pattie who had been kicking her legs in the air in the chair on his right stopped kicking her legs and tilted her head, Liz stopped filing her already perfect nails and they both stared at stein as-well.

"How's a thing like that, even possible? I would get it if it was that her powers simply haven't awakened ...but what exactly do you mean by bound?"

"It's a hunch. I don't even have any evidence, besides the fact that she's a weapon. It doesn't seem necessary likely that she could be one…but still…if there's a possibility I want evidence that she very well isn't one before I can take it easy. Sometimes I worry that there's more of medusas tricks lying around, dead or not.

It was a strange request that was for sure. Wasn't even a hard one really, what did he have to do exactly just stalk around some other teens for a bit?.

"So who is this student?" He asked accepting the challenge.

"They go by the name, Calm and Cool. Cool is the Meister he's pretty random if it comes down to his fights, but if you noticed him in my class he was the blond bored looking kid. The girl with him with the Aqua blue hair and pink highlights was his weapon Calm. Honestly she's anything but calm. "Stein sighed. "She stutters almost every time she talks, as far as I can tell it's got to be nerves or a speech disorder. "

He paused and Death looked at him.

"Do you mean the girl with the streaks? Perfectly aligned to one another. In the front.? Wearing long fingerless gloves, two matching earrings and heels. Not to mention she had shorts on …they were black …and the pockets were square shaped …even siting down the hems in her pants were so …aligned. The shirt was off a stiffer fabric , the and skin tight so it's the perfect outfit to avoid odd wrinkles. The girl behind her had very good symmetry I thought with the exception of that hair…all a mess of curls in different directions. ..

"Um Kid…your starting to worry me with this symmetrical creeping you're doing lately…I mean don't get me wrong, I have no issues with symmetry …but…" Liz's voice was drowned out by patties laughing.

"Your sounding like a pervert creepier! " She said loud as she could.

Stein had a blank look on his face and his cigarette was sort of just dangling out of his mouth in a very distracting manner.

"I AM NOT A CREEPER! IT JUST! So many band shirts lately! With horrible random patterns that cant even be called patterns, and…what's wrong if I noticed? She was so SYMMETRICAL! Its not like I was checking her out! Besides your always saying Its weird I don't! This is nonsense! Anyway Stein ... sorry about that. " Kid paused to calm down , attempt to destroy whatever blush was on his face and straighten out his collar .

"Please continue telling me about your request."

Stein had a rather grim expression on his face. The very room seemed even stuffier and darker than normal . His throat tightened as he stared at Stein's face, a look with all intensity reaching those intelligent judgmental eyes of his. The Light seemed to reflect eerily off his glasses for a moment and all emotion became a mystery .

Then as of out of nowhere Stein began to laugh , sinking calmly into the back of his chair.

"You know …there's nothing to be ashamed off…I often used my obsessive compulsive disorder as an excuse to look at girls when I was your age…I would sit and stare, and when asked what I was looking for , I would defend myself by telling them I wanted to cut them open and see what their heart looked like. It scared most of them off but one or two thought it was a pretty smooth line, liked bad boys I guess…."

Death looked at Stein horrified.

What was worse was he kept on talking…

"And I am on second note a doctor. I have always talk to you about your feelings…Your probably pretty stressed out , surrounded by two pretty gorgeous weapons who follow you everywhere , all the pressure of being Lord Deaths son , having all these new responsibility's. Hormones are bound to be …"

He was going to kill this man one day.

"Stuff it with the coming of age speech and please tell me exactly what you would like me to do."

He leaned forward in his chair and rested his elbows on the table and smiled.

"Well, actually your friend Liz there gave me an idea. "

Liz looked a bit shocked by this.

"Huh? Me what did I say?"

"Kid , I think you should start asking out girls your age on dates…"

"WAIT WHAT? No …I'm not sinking to some new low level…"Kid tightened his knuckles and took a deep breath ."

"You know…I HAVE been talking to your father recently…I do think a topic came up about your future…Lord Death didn't seem to think very much about girls dating you, but has been worried about your more obsessive compulsive attitude lately…as a doctor I could always explain that it has my observation that you have been looking quite a lot at the girls…these days . That it might be a great idea to set you up on a few blind dates so you could have some fun and not feel so depressed about the absence of a love life…might help you brush up on some of those social skills to.."

"You can't do that! You're mad! My father will never believe you! Pattie and Liz will completely side with me, and confirm this as black mail! Wont you Liz and Pattie?" He looked at them pitifully.

Liz had a small frown on her face and Pattie had a smile on hers. They turned to look at one another and in an instant continuous laughter poured out the both of them.

He was going to kill this man one day.

(To be continued ...end of chapter 2)

Note to reader: Please review , I figured a fan fiction would be a perfect way to brush up on my writing skills...and well...I have no idea just how horrible my writing might be. But an hour a day is my new goal for writing , I find that I miss it and it gives you a feeling of accomplishment when you finish a you have any opinions or...heck even requests just review :) 3 VainClick


	3. Chapter 3: Deal with It

Chapter three: Deal with it.

(Calm)

I followed Francis around aimlessly after class was over as he shouted out plans to me and laughed , waving his hands around like he was hot stuff. I

"First we need the MONEY , now I have no idea how the others always can get around like its nothing , but I have a feeling the school must fund it , Im thinking maybe we could ask someone in the financial department for transportation. " Francis said lightly.

"That would destroy the entire point; you said you wanted no one to know about this." I pointed out.

That seemed to catch him off guard and his long lanky walk tilted and was off balance as he paused his expression no doubt a confused one.

"You have a point calm, you're so collected…" he shrugged looking back at me and laughed tossing his hair from his face and letting the light hit it.

"Is that a blush? You're not falling in love with me, are you calm?" I was indeed blushing but it was because I was so embarrassed for him. I choose silence and frowned.

"You are right though, If we got to do this, we better do this ourselves, So I'm thinking….we should take the train to that one city…You know the one with the like dust ..and the swinging doors…"

"The ghost town…" I had to help him with it.

"Yeah, and from there we can walk."

"In the desert…" I said this with a raised eyebrow.

"Yes!...actually no that's probably a bad idea , we can get horses though that ghost town has a stable for tours in the little covered wagons and everything. Anyway we can ride those, because its only an hour by horse and then I guess we look around the plains out there…until we find something."

I was uneasy about this but since it was already obvious he was paying for it all, I had no true objections, if nothing else he was right it was a change of scenery and as long as it was the middle of nowhere I only had Francis to talk to , which meant no stress about strangers and stuttering. I didn't really spend to much alone time with francis unless we were training , he had several friends in his dorm and asking to spend time alone with him would have been insanely weird looking.

"So when are we going?" I asked curiously.

"Why not…now?" HE asked me eagerly like some sort of kid who was outside of a toy store.

"Alright…" I said sighing.

Might as well get this over with , we weren't going to run into a witch anyway.

(DEATH)

Both patty and Liz had completely abandoned him.

"You'll see us again when you ask that girl out ." Liz said cleaning her fingernails.

Kid was furious.

"WHAT ? Are you seriously SIDING with HIM?! NO wait that's impossible …HE BRIBED you somehow didn't he? When I was fixing the curtains!" Liz looked around and clear there was no one to save her from it she smiled uneasily.

"What did he bribe you with exacly?" Kid asked sulkily.

"Well…See actually Ive been trying really hard to get a glimps from this one guy…and well see Stien happens to know him…and well I get a blind date , and alone time . " She was blushing.

"A …a date?" Kid was speechless , his trio was being destroyed by some lame punk surgeon ? He knew exacly which one it was to , he was in the citys hospital , a normal human with a normal job …he probably never held a gun in his life and Liz was all over him? Kid was at a loss. HOW?! WHEN…! Who would want to date a surgeon after suffering classes under DR. Stien ?!

Kid was still speechless. He sat down.

What had happened to the world? When had everyone started caring so much about their love lives? Was he getting old ? Was he developing gray and white hairs already? He looked in the mirror and scowled. What was he even talking about he was BORN with them . He simply put his palm to his face and started thinking.

"I'm not even interested in this STUDENT, she's …A STUDENT, that makes me look like a pervert!"

"Yeah Kid because you're a pervert if you have an interest in a girl whose two or three years younger then you at the most…"

"Exactly... If I do this I'll have to break her heart once we get down to the solved mystery. There's got to be another way to this."

They were currently at the Death Mansion in the living room , Kid had an entire sofa to himself , white leather and wonderfully clean and liz was resting her elbow on the top of the couch while looking down at him from behind the sofa entirely and in front of the bar. Pattie was resting on the floor across from him and behind the glass table looking at a magazine .

"You could just not say anything and follow her everywhere…."Pattie said slowly a big grin on her face. While she kicked her feet back and forth flipping the page. If she was actually reading the magazine though or just looking at the pretty pictures ..Kid couldn't be sure.

As weird as it was to admit this to himself, Pattie really did have a point.

"If you came up to them and told them you would teaching them , everyone else in the town would be talking about it and other students would become jealous UN-able to figure it out , and you very well would be gossiped about anyway SINCE that calm girl is pretty and you NEVER date. You could say you want her to be your weapon, but again her meister would cry, attempt to kill you and it would suck for us and you when it came to fighting. This is the best way to do surveillance without kicking up suspicions. Unless well…" Liz actually trailed off into silence.

"Unless what ..." he said gloomily.

"She just completely rejects you anyway!" Pattie finished for Liz.

Kid felt like he had turned to stone. Why hadn't he thought of that? Why had that not even occurred to him? Now the original horror was multiplied. And she would reject him anyway …because he was …because he was …

"Oh god I'm hideous." Kid crumpled up into a ball on the couch. "It's the stripes…it always come down to the stripes…unsymmetrical means un-beautiful…"

Normally liz and Pattie would try to make him feel better by patting him on the back and assuring him he was plenty handsome , but while Pattie looked conflicted and about to do so , Liz poked him and said. "Stop being a baby you're an supposed to start acting like an adult and your not running this chance with Bobby for me!"

Kid looked up.

"His names Bobby? Seriously? What kind of name is that? That's horrible."

"Ask the girl out or IM OUT!" Liz walked away with her arms crossed. Pattie followed probably because Liz had grabbed a wine bottle. And Kid felt alone.

Unsymmetrical and Alone.


	4. Chapter 4: Catch Me If You Can

** (Calm)**

Half of me didn't really register the fact that Francis was being dead on serious when he ran toward the ticket booth even then. But sure enough I watched as he purchased two tickets, and calmly walk back in my direction.

"We depart in three hours, plenty of time to get our stuff ready." He said his face vacant now as if this were as dull as folding socks.

I sighed. It was already 3PM he had clearly not thought this out all the way. Sure three hours gave us time to get our stuff together …too much time, but the bus trip? Not to mention the ride horse back? We would be out all night. How the hell was he supposed to get that past his dad? Not the fact that I would be questioned about my disappearance in the dorms.

Maybe it was the way I looked at him just then but these facts appeared to register to Francis when his face no longer looked bored but perplexed and then upset.

"Um…I'm going to call my dad real quick and tell him I'm….up on an all-nighter for a test at a friend's house …" He quickly pulled out his cell phone turned around hunched his back as if in shame and called his father.

I sighed and looked away ignoring the brief exchange.

My own parents where god knows where, my grandparents took care of me and then sent me here when I showed promising talent as a weapon. My grandparents told me all my life that both my parents where extremely important business people and gave me into their safe keeping because they were so lonely and they didn't want me brought up neglected.

No they just wanted me to be brought up with abandonment issues. No biggie.

Well as I had grown up I stopped looking through all the drawers looking for photos and secret numbers for a way to contact them because instead I found a clipping in a newspaper.

It was a picture of a man who had many of my same facial features, my last name and had been found dead three months before I was born.

I stopped asking I think because I really didn't want to know anymore. My grandparents where hiding me from something traumatic in their own lives, maybe to lie to themselves and I didn't want to disrupt their dreaming anymore. But I took the clipping and I made a photocopy of it before I placed it back hidden under to many envelopes to count. When I had the chance I filled in the white with watercolor. I gave the man my skin tone and my hair color. Then when it dried I cut out the man's face into a tiny oval and put it in my locket. It was kind of pathetic of me I admit.

"Dad fell for it, he was suspicious for a minuet but I threw in that Professor. Stine was a psychopath who threatened to fail us if we didn't pass this next test, and he accepted it all the way."

"Its kind of true. I'm going to go pack my some of my belongings before to many people show up in the dorms."

* * *

** (Death the Kid)**

It hadn't even been twenty minutes after kid had been left alone to mope that his father summoned him to the death room via text. The message had far too many hearts and a smiley face. Not exactly professional for a mission summon, but he was that kind of father it seemed.

**DAD -**Got a Mission Kiddo! 3 Show up with the girls and I'll go over the details! 3 Make daddy proud! :D

Kid frowned. Well there was no way that Pattie or Liz would turn down a mission from their Lord death no matter how mad they were.

He gathered his gloomy self from the sofa brushing him off and making way to their room door. He knocked.

Liz opened the door smiling.

"So you've decided to go?" She said oddly cheerful.

"Um Father just called we have a mission."

"But you're not going to ask that girl are you?" She said suddenly irritable.

"Does it matter? We probably have a mission of great importance, to save lives. Let's discuss this all later and head out. Pattie! Let's go." Kid said trying to remain collected.

Liz raised an eyebrow.

"Oh she won't be coming, she occupied with the television and we are both on strike remember?'

This did not register with kid. What on earth was Liz talking about? Pattie probably could care less if Liz got to go out with this….God of all names BOB…guy. Strike? Was such a thing even possible? Suddenly there was this feeling of complete unease in him he couldn't shake.

"Liz I'm truly am sorry for making fun of this ….guy you like. Please let's just go to the death room. Missions are a serious thing after all." Kid was very suddenly uncertain that that was the thing to say when Liz had a very creepy grin come across her face that was suddenly gone as it had appeared replaced by a calm and relaxed expression.

"That's exactly why you should go ask this girl out real quick, so we can all go to the death room together. Isn't such a small thing a very tiny sacrifice when it comes to saving lives? To do our job? What's a small date with a stranger then? Its nothing at all, especially if she rejects you. No just asking and making that extra effort." Kid stared at Liz for a moment. This really didn't seem in character for her. When she had been so good at plotting things? Or had this also been the work of stein.

Kid glared at Liz. Liz glared back. Pattie jumped in the background up and down as her favorite actor showed up on the television screen.

"You win, I will quickly find miss. Calm and ask her for coffee….which doesn't necessarily mean date and only implies it. Then will you go to see father with me so we can get back to business?"

"Ill need proof…when you get back." She said steadily.

"Proof…"

"Oh yeah kid…I need her phone number. And don't even try the school registry she has a new number. All confirmed by Stine. You get me her new and unregistered phone number. If it matches up to the one I have hidden away then no more strike and you won't be vulnerable to everything around you. "

Vulnerable …not exactly. He was a shingami…but he certainly felt more vulnerable without backup. Not to mention if somehow he was unable to use his own powers for even a split second…

"I'll be back in twenty minutes." He said agitated and without blinking closed the door on her.

* * *

Twenty minutes ended up being a complete exaggeration when he discovered he hasn't the faintest idea where she was anyway. He had found himself drawn to the school only to realize her particular class was already out for the evening.

So he had to make his way to the dorms and ask so it seemed.

He felt stares on him as he walked in the school. There was a serious expression on his face , after all this was a very important mission on its own. At least he would be in the same building as the death room so this mission wasn't entirely out of his way.

"Excuse me." He stopped a student who dropped her books when she noticed him startled. She looked rather failure and it took Kid a moment or two to place her.

"Ah you're in the class I demonstrated earlier today in aren't you?" He asked. This was perfect; she was the messy curl girl that sat right behind Calm earlier today.

She turned red and looked at him, her eyelashes fluttered as she slowly picked up her books, and oh so slowly got up. She kept her head down and her voice came out in a sort of husky sound while she looked from her lashes at him.

"So you remember me then…" she said twirling her hair with her finger. Kid seriously wondered if she was perhaps I'll to react so slowly and to blink so much …humans really did get sick a lot after all , one of the few things that reminded him that he wasn't in fact exactly human.

"Actually this is perfect timing I need to ask you something if you're not in a hurry."

She seemed to smile then and looked away as her smile widened then slowly focusing.

"I'm willing to answer any questions you have for me ..." Kid's eyes lit up when she said this.

"Do you know where the girl sitting in front of you in your class today is? " He didn't notice her face completely darken when a wonderful idea hit him. He didn't even need to ask her out! He could just get the number and lie and say she rejected him and perhaps he spilt coffee on her blouse and he got the number to repair damages!

"And if you have Calms number could you give it to me?" He said eagerly. Only then he noticed the furry on the girls face and backed a step away.

"You….you want Calms number…" She said aghast.

"Or information on where she is currently located…" Her face turned red like a beet and her cheeks puffed up like she was having an allergic reaction.

"She's probably with Cool; they spend a lot of time together…" She said slowly and in a low voice her eyes now narrowing. Perhaps the girl had a speech impediment as well.

"Ah well if that's the case, I would like to know where Cool is." He found himself accidently mocking her tone with a low tone and eye narrowing before he coughed and straightened himself up.

"Oh! Please don't do anything to him! HEs really nice, I didn't mean anything really I didn't, I mean …"

A few people passed in the hallway turning at their raised voice and noticing Kid. Then there were some whispers. He really needed to get this information a little quicker.

"I saw them looking at that old post on the bulletin board earlier , the crinkly faded out one , other than that there's really nothing I can tell you!" She seemed worried about the crowed and purposely leaned into his ear loudly whispering this.

"Thank you." He said formally and bowed quickly taking off toward the mission board.

The school hallways where cast in a golden light and the shadows where growing much longer, a hint that it was noon. Students in the hallway who had good reflexes quickly moved out of his way as he rushed down the hallway walking with his back straight and his eyes set dead straight ahead of him.

When he reached the board he had to squint for a minuet letting his eyes adjust to the glare from the windows just above it.

_A Crinkly old paper . _He thought to himself searching the papers for a matching description. Considering most of the flyers where either government jobs on papers neatly pressed or local request in colors as eye catching as they could get he had to look a bit till he found it , and when he did spot it it was hidden in the shadow of the other papers almost as though it never wanted to be found. He picked it up, tearing it from the thumbtack and looking at it .

[A witch has been spotted on the patch plains] It said simply. That yelled suspicious. But even more so that it had no other information not to mention ranking. If this was the mission they were after it wasn't a very bright move. There may be no witch anyway. He decided to flip the paper over to see if there was any more information and found a …black kiss print? And not to mention a scrawl in ink

_Try to catch me if you can – Ahti_.

Kid froze looking at the paper. There was a possibility this was not good. Not good at all. He quickly pulled out his cell phone and hesitated before punching numbers.

"Hello?" Stine answered.

"Do you know anything about someone named Ahti? Possibly a witch?" Kid asked focused on the inky kiss print.

{" Ah yes , heard very little about her this century she's pretty dangerous , and from I heard pretty breath taking. Always wanted to …"} Kid heard a loud cough in the background of where ever stein was and then Stine continued.

{"But nothing as break taking as the love of my life Marie..."} And sure enough Stein could be heard nervously laughing. Kid wondered if breath taking was in a literal sense.

"Listen Stein , both Calm and Cool went following some post on the notice board and I have reason to believe this witch is the one their after , what are their chances exactly…."

{"Slim to none…"} Stein answered bluntly. Kid hung up.

He pulled out his pocket mirror and made the quick call scrawling the number on it with a stick of eyeliner he stole from Liz.

"Kiddo? Where are you? What's wrong?" His head tilted to the side curious from what he could tell.

"I'm afraid something's come up , something very important ."

* * *

_Thank you very much for reading , any comments , advice , reviews or anything is always appreciated they make my day._

_-Vain click_


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